Way back when Facebook was but a pup and I had just signed up, I got involved in a "questions" board (I can't find it anymore, but it's probably there somewhere) where people could post any question they liked and others who thought they knew the answer could post it. Discussions ensued, debates, outright rows sometimes. It was interesting.
The first time I "played" was when someone asked "What is an atheist?".
I toyed with various tired, flippant answers like "Someone who believes in one less god than you do" but, before I had decided just how to reply, others had beaten me to it.
My first surprise was that whenever anyone gave a "straight" answer (like "it's someone who doesn't believe in God"), an argument broke out as to whether such a thing was possible. The theists in the mix argued along the lines that one could not "not believe" in the ultimate creator - it just was not an option, there's no box for that. What had happened, they claimed, was that the self-proclaimed atheists had (and this IS a quote from one, there were other ways expressing the same idea) "chosen to deny God". One theist answering even defined an atheist as one who "claims" not to believe in God.
This made my jaw drop. I weighed into the discussion and learned something interesting. Bear in mind, please, that many (though not all) of the most vocal theists in this forum were, by now, some stripe of Southern US fundamentalists. The something that I learned was this:-
"These people believe that one can choose what to believe."
Conversely, all the atheists on the board, me included, just accepted that belief is not a choice. They didn't even raise the issue - it just WAS that way. It's actually, I would say, a "linguistic fact"; that is, it's what the word MEANS. "Choosing to believe" is a nonce concept, by definition.
I was familiar, from previous reading, with "Pascal's Wager"; a philosophical argument that says it's a "good idea" to believe in God because you have nothing to lose by being wrong and everything to gain by being right. I had never taken this "reasoning" seriously - and hadn't really thought anyone else did (I gather even Pascal had his tongue firmly in his cheek) - for two reasons.
Firstly, and less relevantly here, surely, any deity worth praying to would KNOW if we were only "believing" so as to hedge our bets and wouldn't grant the benefits we were looking for (or our "Get Out Of Hell Free" card). Secondly, and more pertinently, the idea of a god - any god - either makes sense to an individual or it doesn't. Whether through indoctrination, cultural background, divine revelation or pure thought and reasoning, each of us, surely, believes what we do because, on some level, it makes sense to us, not because we somehow CHOOSE to?
Is Santa Claus real because a child believes he is? In some fiction maybe, but surely not in the real world?
Then another logical penny dropped in my head. What do they mean by "believe IN"?
I "believe IN" free education, no-pay health care, etc. But that means I SUPPORT these things, I think they are right and necessary. It has nothing to do with their existence or otherwise.
That's not what someone is saying when they say they "believe in" some deity, though, is it? They're not just saying "I think God is a good thing" are they?. It had never really bothered me before because the simple fact is that, whatever they mean, I think they're wrong. In just the same way that it doesn't matter to me which god, which religion, which denomination is under discussion. They are all, fundamentally (pun intended) and (almost) equally, wrong.
Now, it is not my purpose here to go into all the reasons why I "believe" what I do. I will do that on request but suffice it to say, for now, in case it's not already obvious, that I am an atheist. That word itself is problematic.
It comes firmly from the other camp. Completing a form that asks my religion, I can easily put "none", since this is, while perhaps unhelpful, undoubtedly true. But "atheist" does not work. A friend recently put this quote on his Facebook page - I don't know where he got it, but I've stolen, and paraphrased it:-
"Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby"
Perfect! I wish I'd thought of it. Thinking about it again, it has Douglas Adams's feel to it, perhaps it's his.
So, I am only an atheist in the context of a discussion on the existence or otherwise of deities. I am no more an atheist the rest of the time than a non-stamp collector is an "aphilatelist" while he's washing his car - though, were he to attend a stamp auction, he might well describe himself that way. This is, incidentally, the beginning of my standard response to comments like "But that's so negative", or "Then what DO you believe in?". I only "have" to be an atheist because "you" are superstitious, t'ain't negative, just real.
See where I'm going with this? LANGUAGE. The languages of the world have all evolved (yes, they did! Just like us) in an environment dominated by religious thinking. It is only necessary for the word "atheist" to exist because subscribing to ancient organized superstitions is still considered normal - it's even still expected, even demanded in many places.
So before any discourse can lead to real understanding between these two camps, we have to get very picky about words and what we mean by them.
About 25 years ago, for about 6 weeks, I had a "pet Jehovah's Witness". He came to my door one Saturday morning and when, some three hours later, he left, he promised to come back the next week to continue our conversation because, he said, I was a seeker after truth. He came, week after week, until I told him that one reason I talked to him was that while he was with me, he was not finding more gullible people. He vanished. I enjoyed the mental exercise but only now do I realise how far apart we actually were. When he says "truth", he doesn't mean the same thing as me. I was looking (seeking, if you insist) for insight into the human mind, the social issues surrounding "belief", the rights and wrongs of indoctrination, and so on. He thinks he can open a book and long dead writers will save him from having to think at all. (That's unfair, I know, and deliberately provocative, but I think my point is made).
During the Facebook discussion I was referring to earlier, a young man (I'm calling him Matthew) sent me a private message. Our subsequent discussion was fascinating, enlightening and, in the end, to me anyway, quite sad. I plan to quote from that discussion at length in the next update (which I will start right after I post this one). For reasons that will become clear, I cannot ask Matthew's permission to do this. He may be watching. If so, he will recognise himself and hopefully tell me if he objects. I'm sure he won't/wouldn't and I will not reveal any personal details, but I want to give him what chance I can to comment.
That'll do for this chapter. Next: Matthew's question.
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